EPA's Clean Power Plan is more than feasible

The EPA's goal of
reducing U.S. carbon emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 not
only is technologically feasible but
underestimates what can be achieved using readily
available, cost-effective renewable energy sources.
According to an
analysis by the Union of Concerned
Scientists (UCS), the EPA could nearly double the amount of renewable energy
projected for its state targets, from 12% of
total 2030 U.S. electricity to 23%.
That alone would increase the rule's emissions reductions from 30% to
approximately 40% below 2005 levels by 2030.

"After the equipment is manufactured and installed, the 'fuel' --
the sun's rays or the wind -- is free, which
certainly is not the case with coal,
natural gas or nuclear
power plants. That fact helps stabilize electricity
prices and provide long-term savings."

The full article:

Coal companies
gaveKentuckyRepublicanMitch
McConnell more than a quarter of a million dollars during the last
election cycle -- three and a half times more than they gave anyone else in
the Senate -- and so far, they're getting their money's worth.

Now Senatemajority
leader, McConnell has been leading the
charge against the Obama administration's
purported "war on coal" and railing against the Environmental Protection
Agency's proposal to curb power plant carbon emissions. He has called the
agency's Clean Power Plan "a dagger in the
heart of the American middle class" and, in a recent
op-ed in the Lexington
Herald-Leader, went so far as to encourage governors to refuse
to cooperate with the EPA on state-specific, emissions-reduction strategies.
McConnell then followed up his op-ed by sending a letter on March 20 to
every governor in the United States laying out his legal argument against
complying with the Clean Power Plan.

In his op-ed, McConnell repeated the same baseless
claims he has been making for some time. He maintained that the carbon
emissions rule is technologically unattainable. He said it would dramatically
increase electricity rates across the country. And he contended it would ruin
his state's economy, throwing "countless" people out of work.

"Think twice before submitting a state plan...," he advised governors and
state officials. "Without your support," the administration "won't be able to
demonstrate the capacity to carry out such political extremism."

Political extremism? Hardly. If anything, what the EPA is proposing is too
modest.

EPA Lowballs Renewable Energy Potential

First and foremost, the agency's goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions 30
percent below 2005 levels by 2030 not only is
technologically feasible but underestimates what can be achieved using
readily available, cost-effective renewable energy sources. According to an
analysis by the Union of Concerned
Scientists (UCS), the EPA could nearly double
the amount of renewable energy projected for its state targets, from 12
percent of total 2030 U.S. electricity to 23 percent. That alone would increase
the rule's emissions reductions from 30 percent to approximately 40 percent
below 2005 levels by 2030.

"The Clean Power Plan does not adequately
capture renewable energy deployment rates that states are already achieving,"
UCS found. "The plan also fails to reflect the
continued growth and falling costs of renewable energy
projected by market experts. Indeed, the EPA's proposal falls short of
the national renewable energy levels that the U.S. Energy
Information Administration (EIA) projects would occur in 2020 under a
business-as-usual approach [and] the proposal's 2030 results are only marginally
higher than the EIA's projections."

Take McConnell's home state of
Kentucky. According to the
EIA's most recent data, about 93 percent of the state's electricity comes
from coal-fired power plants. Non-hydroelectric
renewable energy generates 0.6 percent. The EPA's Clean Power Plan foresees only
1.3 percent of the state's electricity coming from renewable energy in 2030.

"Based on the rates of growth that we are seeing across the country,
Kentucky should be able to meet a renewable target
of more than 12 percent by 2030," said Jeff Deyette, co-author of the
UCS analysis. "While Kentucky doesn't have great
wind resources, it does have significant solar, bioenergy and energy-efficiency
potential."

In any case, the EPA plan grants states a great deal of flexibility in
meeting their carbon-reduction targets, which are based on their particular
situations. Kentucky's goal -- an 18 percent drop
by 2030 -- is lower than that of many other states, for instance, because of its
heavy reliance on coal. The state can meet that
target by embracing a range of initiatives, including switching
coal plants to natural gas and, as Deyette pointed
out, ramping up renewables and promoting energy efficiency to dampen demand.

Renewables Can Lower Electricity Rates

Despite McConnell's rates-through-the-roof rhetoric, replacing dirty,
coal-fired electricity with carbon-free renewable power at worst has a marginal
impact on the cost of electricity. At best, it lowers rates.

Last year, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
and National Renewable Energy Laboratory published
a joint cost-benefit
analysis of state standards requiring utilities to increase
their use of renewables by a certain percentage by a specific year. Targets
currently range from 10% by 2015 in Michigan
and Wisconsin to 33% by 2020 in
California. Their analysis -- based on available
data from 24 of the 29 states with such standards -- found the
standards on average affected retail electricity rates by only 1 percent
between 2010 and 2012, although there was a wide variation across states.

Earlier this month, the venture capital firm DBL
Investors published a
study that looked more closely at how various states'
renewable electricity standards are faring. It found that states with the
highest percentage of renewable-generated electricity often have
lower average retail prices than both the national
average and states with the smallest percentage of renewable-generated
electricity.

Deyette expects renewable standards to continue to reduce retail prices.
"Most renewable energy technology costs are incurred up front," he explained.
"After the equipment is manufactured and installed, the 'fuel' --
the sun's rays or the wind -- is free, which
certainly is not the case with coal,
natural gas or nuclear
power plants. That fact helps stabilize electricity
prices and provide long-term savings."

Kentucky's Economy Not Dependent on Coal

McConnell routinely blames the
EPA for killing the coal industry and
devastating Kentucky's economy. The EPA, he claimed in a December 2014
interview with the Associated Press, "has created a
depression in my state and it's done a lot of damage to the country all across
the country with these efforts to essentially eliminate coal-fired generation."
And he maintains the Clean Power Plan will make things even worse. In his March
3
op-ed in the Lexington Herald-Leader, he predicted
that the plan will shrink Kentucky's economy "by almost $2 billion and throw
countless out of work."

Is the EPA really the boogeyman? The facts say otherwise.

To be sure, stricter pollution controls have had an impact on Kentucky coal
country, but cheap natural gas, aging coal plants, and slow growth in
electricity demand are a bigger headache for the industry. Automation and higher
worker productivity, too, have played a major role in downsizing its workforce
over the last few decades.

But the larger point is Kentucky's economy doesn't rise or fall on coal.
Although Kentucky supplies 8 percent of the nation's coal -- making it the third
largest coal-producing state -- coal is a relatively minor player in the
economy. It's not even one of state's top 10 industries.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
the coal industry employed only 11,800 workers in
Kentucky in 2013, representing a mere 0.64 percent
of the state's private, nonfarm working population. By contrast, manufacturers
in the state
employ more than 250,000 people, including more than 65,000
in the auto industry. The state's biotech and life sciences sector, meanwhile,
supports more than 93,000 workers. Then there's the equine industry, and the
fact that the state is the leading producer of American whiskey.

McConnell, however, likes to fixate on
Kentucky'scoal
industry, which employs less than 1 percent of the state's workers, and pretend
that it's the state's main economic driver. And that means turning a blind eye
to the reality of climate change.

In that December interview with the Associated Press,
McConnell was asked if the Senate has any
obligation to address the growing threat of global warming.

"Look, my first obligation is to protect my people," he responded, "who are
hurting as the result of what this administration is doing."

Left unsaid is what McConnell meant by "my
people." Was he referring to his constituents in Kentucky,
or was he talking about the coal companies --
Alliance Resource Partners, Koch Industries, Peabody
Energy and Southern Company -- that bankrolled his
last election?

Source Huff Post - Elliott Negin is a senior writer with the Union of
Concerned Scientists.